More of Sylvia's Sampler

Rows 4 and 5 are complete and the challenges keep coming! I have discovered that as long as I can do a paper pieced block, I no longer worry about the 1/4" seams being exact. However, row 6 is actually completed although not photographed yet. It was all done with templates or written instructions and they were not EASY! But I persevered, even making one block 3 times before I got it finished to the exact measurements. Anyway, I nearly have half of the blocks done...140 here I come.
We had lunch this week with friends from Rawlins. They were actually teachers I worked with at Mt.View Elementary where I spent 14 years as school secretary. For us, we feel like a family of sorts. It is unusual for a group of upwards of 20 employees to continue to stay in touch after retirement, especially since we all have moved on with our lives. But the glue that held us together was our principal. Together we saw each other through joy and tragedy--marriages, divorces, births and deaths. There were good times and bad times and changes, but mostly memories and each of us with a special quality to hold our family together! Some, like us, have moved to Cheyenne as the need to be closer to Dr's and the other amenities a larger city offers, but when we have the opportunity, we still get together. This year, our dear Mt. View Elementary, along with the other old elementary schools will be closing and students will be together in a new school. Our school was built in the middle of the last century. Needless to say, it had been updated several times to accommodate the changes that come with progress but eventually there aren't enough "band aids" to hold it together. Our Mt. View "family" and friends will be gathering next month to remember the Ol' gal and the good times and to say goodbye to an old friend.

"Friends are like stars--you can't always see them, but you know they are there."

Before the migration

The pictures were taken from the patio door so unless you click on them in order to enlarge them, they are a bit fuzzy. My apologies. However, there are several robins slurping and sharing with the sparrows and since I took this pic night before last, I have not seen a robin.
Fall is definitely in the air and I am sure the migration has started. There were doves, blue jays, robins, blackbirds and sparrows all fighting for territory near the water source. This is simply a cement structure, formed over a large rhubarb leaf which my daughter and I made several years ago. It has held up so well and the birds love it!!

Taking a trip today with my buddy, Sal, across the state line gave us a chance to witness the spectacular fall colors. Mother nature graced us this year with the latest Indian Summer I can remember. In the fields the cabbages were still waiting for harvest, the corn is drying yet to be cut for livestock fodder, the sugar beets are being harvested and the trees are brilliant with color!
We spent the day rummaging through antique shops and country shops and flea markets! Usually by this time we are pulling on snow boots, scarves, gloves and heavy coats, but it was a day to remember and spent with a couple of good friends, who could ask for anything more?

"Everything has its beauty, but not everyone sees it." ~ Confucius

My new toy!

I won the bidding on the little Singer featherweight on a Thursday eve, it was shipped on Fri and the UPS delivered it on Monday. In addition, the price was very good...I lost one at a $350.00 plus bid (and this was much less) and it was everything the seller claimed it to be! Above are all of the attachments, a ruffler, a gatherer, a zipper foot, one for lace and other things that are quite frankly a little scary in appearance. In the Green box is an old buttonhole attachment. I am not sure it is for this machine, as it is straight stitch only. The original booklet is here and it all was packed very neatly in the original carrying case. It sews like it was new and as you can see, the spool of thread makes this compact, lightweight jewel appear pretty small.
I have signed up for another class and at only 11 lbs, it will be so nice not to pack my heavier machines. Admittedly my studio, which serves as my craft room, stained glass workshop, houses our treadmill, dog beds and now with 4 sewing machines, looks like a sweat shop for underpaid seamstresses.

There is a bite in the air now which is signaling the onset of winter and the snows that will soon be falling. My garden plot is ready for next spring, and the drip system is nearly finished. I have been gathering seeds and will soon put out the bird feeders. Since providing a water source in our backyard for the birds, we have had an abundance of visitors and all are chowing down on the seeds they somehow scratch from the drying grasses and flower heads. Several pair of doves are regulars, and the robins are arriving and grouping for the flight south. This year we have had some blue jays of sorts, several as a matter of fact. When they are gone, we will have finches to entertain all winter and of course the sparrows. The Mr. calls them "flying rats". I will miss the warm days and don't look forward to donning boots, heavy coats and gloves, or fighting the bitter cold winds, but then, spring does follow winter.

Gardening

470 bricks complete my "yellow" -- make that "red" brick road, Dorothy. With "Toto" in the background and my knees healing from the ordeal, we are quite pleased with the finished final walkway. Not wanting it to look "new", I was determined to lay this the way my grandmother might have done it. No digging down 6" and adding pea gravel or sand to be tamped to perfection. On the left will be a mulched area, shaded by the Aspen grove and on the right, the herb and veggie garden with ground cover between.
3 cubic yards of topsoil with 40% amendment filled the raised garden area and I still have to sift my black gold...compost for you non-gardeners, and add to the mix. In addition, there is a small area for herbs. The drip system is almost completed and hopefully this will look so different next year.
This is the front garden as of Oct. 1st. However, today there is a touch of fall in the air. Woke up to frost on things, but not enough to affect anything. I truly am blessed to have such wonderful friends and neighbors. Next door, I was gifted with a multitude of perennials...Hollyhock seeds from a giant pink plant, so many coral bells(I lost count), a butterfly plant, another hyssop which I divided, a geranium and others I don't even remember at the moment. Then last night, Sal came with what she calls "warm fuzzies". It was a 4 tiered indoor/outdoor plant stand which will be used to start my seedlings next spring. Thank you both!!

"To own a bit of ground, to scratch it with a hoe, to plant seeds and watch their renewal of life---
this is the commonest delight of the race, the most satisfactory thing a man can do.
~ Charles Dudley Warner

Birdhouse and Sylvia's Sampler

As promised, this is the small birdhouse. The other gals made larger ones, two story birdhouses and we had so much fun! I fashioned my roof from metal flashing, and soldered it together with ball chain at the bottom to cover the cut edges. One gal used a copper gelatin or pudding mold for a roof and we found metal funnels at the big box home improvement store for some of the others. The base is a plumbing item glued in and it will allow air to circulate. Those stores are great resources for crafters. The rocks are affixed with liquid nails.

And the 3rd row of Sylvia's Wedding sampler is now complete. This gives one an opportunity to use all of the smaller pieces of fabric that just are too good to toss.

Yesterday the Mr. and I went for our flu and pneumonia shots and we have been paying for it since. This year anyone who has reached the age of 65 received a different vaccine than younger people. Our arms are swollen and extremely sore (never have I had such a reaction to an injection). The Mr. is convinced that this is a plot to actually get rid of this baby boomer generation. He may be right!!! More swelling today and hopefully by tomorrow we will see improvement!

We never really grow up; we only learn how to act in public.

Great finds and Sylvia's Sampler update

See the wonderful cast iron griddle? I have a love for cast iron cookware and the Mr. and I hit a whole rural neighborhood of garage sales a couple of weeks ago. For a mere two bucks, I scored this 20" griddle in really great shape. I made pancakes and sausage all at once the next morning.
Great find!
Then the paper cutter. In our computer room, office, whatever..we constantly have a need for a paper cutter and have always wished for an old school paper cutter. At 12"X12"this one isn't too large. Another good score for $5.00.

Now to Sylvia's sampler blocks. Remember when I posted row 2, many weeks ago, I just skipped # 8 as it seemed way beyond my capabilities? I got my nose to the grindstone and decided that it was not going to intimidate me and I successfully completed it. Since these blocks unfinished are only 6 1/2 inches (if your quarter inch seams are correct), it has many small pieces. Ignore the strings and less than perfect seam allowances. In a large quilt with over 140 small squares, I don't think it will be noticed.
Pardon the absence. I have been really busy! The Mr. is installing a drip system for both front and back gardens, including all of the trees. It has been a job. I completed my brick walkway and started my herb garden border. Today I dug coral bells, yarrow and hyssop from my generous neighbor's yard and planted those. The first part of the week, my friend Barb came and spent 3 days and nights with me. We shopped and crafted on Tues when my other friend Pat came to spend the day. I am working on two quilts. Prior to that, I can't remember...but one day just runs into another at this stage of my life.

A friend sent us an E-mail...perhaps you have received this one. A new-word-for-the-day?
Paraprosdokian is a figure of speech in which the latter part of a sentence or phrase is surprising or unexpected in a way that cause the reader or listener to re-frame or reinterpret the first part.
Example: A clear conscience is usually the sign of a bad memory.

Even though I have away from the blog for a couple of weeks, I leave today with a clear conscience. Think about it.

Resume of life

This brick path is being constructed by me with gloved hands. I don't like to wear gloves, but the bricks and the shoveling and the sifting the rocks from the soil I remove are so hard on my bare hands. I have always thought my hands were, as hands go, a nice compliment to my otherwise plain, short and now stubby body. Not being a very vain person, I have always liked the way my hands looked. As a child these pastie white hands burned in the rays of the hot summer sun, as I did chores assigned, and played outside when the work was finished. They hoed weeds in the yard, pulled weeds in our garden, froze in the early winter morning hours as milk was fed to calves, and frozen water dishes were broken for other animals. By the age of 4, I was learning to hold a crochet hook and weave yarn carefully around my nimble fingers under the careful eyes of my maternal grandmother. My 6th grade teacher taught the class to knit on those winter days too cold to be allowed outside at recess. My mother taught me to embroider and my fingers pushed the needle up and down, fingers getting pricked in the process. Then I was taught to sew and we made most of our own clothes. These hands worked one summer in a beet field with my mother, on my hands and knees, thinning sugar beets. Later for six plus months, they supported my body on a pair of crutches as my broken leg and foot were healing. After high school I became a keypunch operator (when a computer occupied an entire room), and later a typist and then worked as a secretary...all requiring my fingers to fly across the machines as many as 8 hours a day. As a mother of two, they did all of the "motherly" things mother's hands do. I learned to decorate cakes and that is one of the most stressful actions on the wrists, hands and fingers. I am a stained glass artist and using the cutters and other related tools are brutal on hands. I tried throwing pots..never quite getting the hang of it, but I do love mosaics and grouting. I build birdhouses and have learned to use lots of tools, but again the staple guns were tough on the hands. (now there are electric ones) Now I am finally getting to do some quilting also. I have always done gardening and for the life of me cannot wear gloves!! ( gotta get them in the soil) My hands help me talk. If someone tied them behind my back I would not be able to talk. (A joke my dad always told me.) Looking at my hands now, they are so abused and weather beaten and just plain ugly. Of course they are getting older and the skin is getting thinner and the veins are getting bluer and more pronounced. Today I heard an artist discuss a water color she had done of an old woman and her weathered hands. She said something that inspired me. She said that she felt that "hands are a resume of a person's life".

I will forever remember that quote. Seeing my fingers with their tale tell signs of arthritic joints and my scarred palms and veins popping, and my aching wrists, I must have a hell of a resume of my life!